Can anyone give me any guidance on buying a new stylus/cartridge for my turntable?

The one that's in it is made by Ortofon but I couldn't say what model number or anything. (Although if it's important I could look at it when I get home as I assume it's on there somewhere.)

It was the one I bought with the turntable, though, so it's donkey's years old & the sound is massively biased to the left speaker so I'd like to set it up from scratch again. I figure if I'm gonna go to the trouble of setting the thing up again with the new drive belt I bought recently, I may as well do the job properly & change the stylus/cartridge too. (I'm not sure whether I need to change both or whether a new needle would do the trick.)

So I'm looking for guidance as to suitable components that I can get from somewhere in the UK (preferably London so that I can stop by but that's not essential).

Unless the best recommendations are otherwise.

I also wonder whether it's worth the trouble of getting some of that DeOxit stuff, too, as the connectors might need a bit of work.

Thanks.

__________________
God only made a few perfect heads. He had to
cover the rest up with hair.

Some old ortofons had the bad habit of having a bad channel suddenly and out of the blue.
I owned two in a row.
Buying a new stylus for it might be useless until you know for sure if your cartridge is working fine.

As for a replacement, do a little search on the forum, I recall a thread discussing this.

Originally posted by Netlist Some old ortofons had the bad habit of having a bad channel suddenly and out of the blue.
I owned two in a row.
Buying a new stylus for it might be useless until you know for sure if your cartridge is working fine.

As for a replacement, do a little search on the forum, I recall a thread discussing this.

/Hugo

Thanks, I'll have a look around.

It's a bit "chicken & egg" though, isn't it? I mean, presumably I won't know if the cartridge has gone bad until I replace the stylus & see if it works?

__________________
God only made a few perfect heads. He had to
cover the rest up with hair.

Why risk it... Just get a new cartridge, the difference in cost between a replacement stylus and the whole cartridge it goes with is generally not great with standard types. Plus there has been some evolution since that cartridge was made.

Originally posted by kevinkr Why risk it... Just get a new cartridge, the difference in cost between a replacement stylus and the whole cartridge it goes with is generally not great with standard types. Plus there has been some evolution since that cartridge was made.